Modeling Environmental Governance in the Lake Tahoe Basin: A Multiplex Network Approach

Guided by the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF), this study analyzes the discourse of actors involved in environmental governance in the Lake Tahoe Basin during a period of major policy change. It relies on discourse network analysis to extract relational data from articles published in three newspapers about the design, adoption, and implementation of the policy over a decade. The resulting multiplex network models the Lake Tahoe environmental governance subsystem via different types of relationships among actors theorized to be important by the ACF, including shared beliefs, interactions, and policy positions. Findings suggest that two distinct coalitions exist—one prioritizing environmental protection and one prioritizing economic development—that primarily engage in intra-coalition coordination but occasionally “tip the hat” to one another’s beliefs.